Friday, 7 October 2016

Bathing back then ...

First of all, welcome to Leslie Walker.

Having a bath with no bath product in it and using soap, which left a
horrid dirty tide mark which took some cleaning when the bath was
emptied, especially if it had not been cleaned for a while. I had many
baths like that, but eventually could afford bath cubes. These softened
the water and made it very slippery. You had to be very careful when
getting out to not slip or fall, which I did quite often.

On
the bathing subject, when I lived with one of my sisters, they didn't
have a bath and once a week, we would take ourselves of to a public bath
house. I think we paid 10p for a bath cube and 50p for a bath. You got a
towel and a little cubicle where you undressed to have a private bath.
You could use as much hot water as you like although you had to get out
onto a wooden duck board which housed goodness knows what germs.

The towels were usually very hard and scratched but at least you were clean for another week. Obviously, we strip washed every day inbetween. I don't think our hair appreciated being washed in the water and it cost even more to hire a hairdryer off them, so usually we walked home with wet hair drying in the breeze. Hardy souls really in those days.

When my nephew was a baby, my sister had a huge square washing machine which she filled with buckets of hot water from the immersion tank. It had a manuel mangle attached to it for wringing out the clothes which you did after they had been washed in the soapy water. They sat in an iron bath tub thing until all the clothes were washed. Then the machine had to be emptied. Luckily it had a drain tap on the front so back it came into buckets to go down the sink.

Then it was filled up again with rinsing water and the whole wash rinsed, not once but twice. Emptying out inbetween each rinse. Finally, it was emptied and put away and the washing, still very damp, went out onto the line. You really had to know the weather and when to do this otherwise it meant drying indoors which was awfully steamy for hours. Anything with buttons on had to be folded so as not to break them as they went through the mangle. Eventually she got a twin tub, so much better.

His nappies were the last to go in each time, coming from being soaked in the nappy bucket. They eventually invested in one of these. It cost a lot to run and by the time the nappies were dry they came out shaped like a tight U, very, very hard. Poor kid but that was what you had to do. Line drying was not only cheaper but they were slightly softer. However, he did get to use of the the early Paddi Pad nappies, see here.

That is it for this week, have a great weekend and hope you have some good memories to share.

10 comments:

I used to hate bath night with a passion. We didn't have a proper bathroom until I was about twelve so it was the tin bath in front of the fire on a Sunday night and a good wash in the kitchen sink every other night. With five of us the water got a bit murky towards the end. Luckily our hair was washed in the kitchen sink before we got in the bath-x-

We didn't have a bathroom until I was 16 and hated bath nights in front of the fire in the tin bath. My friend and I had weekly visits to the public baths during our teens and I have very fond memories of bath cubes and talcum powder. I usually have a shower these days but still love a sprinkle of talc now and again. I still view the bathroom and plentiful running hot water as a luxury.

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About Me

I am happily married to my lovely hubby DB. We have a fantastic son DS., and a lovely DDiL. We have each other, a roof over our heads, a son and DDiL who love us and who are loved in return. Who can ask for anything more!
We have a medium sized garden to grow our own summer fruit & veg & like to live as simply & healthily as possible.